


The Purple Box

by veredgf



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Scully's POV, Season/Series 10, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 12:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12507840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veredgf/pseuds/veredgf
Summary: Scully's thoughts as she encounters an item in her bathroom cabinet.





	The Purple Box

Scully opened the bathroom storage cabinet and began taking items out as she searched for a fresh toothbrush. She was certain she’d bought a pair some six months ago. She’d never be caught without a refill for just about anything in her home. The moment she was down to one item and she’d be scribbling its details on the pad stuck on the refrigerator so she could add it to her shopping list for that week.

She pulled out body lotion, shampoo and tubes of hand cream as she plowed through the cabinet’s contents. Once the bottles and tubes were out of the way, she began removing all the boxes that were stacked behind. Packets of gauze, Kleenex and Band-Aid’s were now being neatly stacked all around her but still the eluding packet of toothbrushes remained missing.

She sighed, but continued with her mission to uncover the mystery of the AWOL tooth-cleaning items.

Half absent-minded she pulled a purple box out of the small storage section, but as it passed under her scrutiny, she suddenly felt a sickening pain.

She’d not laid her eyes on such a box for quite some time now.

She stared at it, her mind lingering back into the past, to the days before her abduction, when that purple box was a permanent fixture outside the storage cabinet, given a place of honor on the front shelf by the bathroom sink.

She remembered cursing having to pull one of the tube-shaped items out of it and having to unveil it and then having to use it. God! Did she hate those days back then! It didn’t matter that she was a medical doctor and that she knew the importance of having a period. She resented how it affected her in oh so many ways. The grip it held over her mood, the effect it had on her body before the event and during it; the cravings, the bloating, the cramping, the blood, the mess… the loss of control that it represented.

If only she'd had known.

When her period didn’t return after her abduction she told herself to be patient. _Your body has been through an ordeal, you can’t expect it to bounce right back to where it was before_ , she explained in her mind. The logic of it all was quite clear to her, but emotionally she willed herself to bounce back to the previous version of Scully. She wished it would have been possible to reset things so she could go back to that naïve girl who hated her periods. The thought made her laugh bitterly. What did she know back then.

For a year or so post her abduction she had no period. One would think that being a medical doctor, she’d go and have this issue checked out right away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. It was a mixture of sorts that made her stay away from such examinations. A mixture of illogical shame and illogical fear of finding out something she didn’t really want to know combined with the haunting dreams she'd been having. The dreams were very vague but there was some form of gynecological treatment involved and that brought out an irrational revulsion of anything related.

So she stirred clear of gynecologists and she swallowed hard each time Mulder made a snide period remark at her. It wasn’t really his fault. He didn’t know and she wasn’t willing to share. It wasn’t so much that she felt uncomfortable about talking intimacy with him, but more that she refused to talk about her problem because she felt that talking about it would serve as acknowledgement to its existence.

Then, after a year had passed, she began to bleed again.

The first fleck of blood marring her panties almost sent her into shock. She stared at it for a good number of minutes, wondering what it meant. She was bewildered by her own blood. But then, when the initial shock had passed, she felt tears rolling alongside her cheeks. She was emotionally overwhelmed. Feelings of relief mixed with joy flooded her system and she found herself crying as if she were a silly little girl.

Now, thinking back of that moment, she wanted to cry once more. She felt sorry for that still naïve Dana Scully who had no idea what that lying drop of blood truly meant.

She believed she was menstruating again but it was just her body playing tricks on her as it tried to pretend all was normal with it.

‘Anovulatory Cycle’. Two words she had come to resent even more than her period. God’s way of laughing at her. Or maybe she should say it was just Satan who was lingering behind it all and making her believe she was fertile. What a cruel trick of nature it was; making her bleed each month so she would be lulled into the illusion that she was normal when in truth she was not.

When she had learnt the truth, she found herself staring at her spotting with anger and spite. She didn’t cry anymore. She’d been through too much to be able to go back to simple tear-shedding, but she resented her body lying to her and she detested having to re-live that lie every month over and over again.

And then the time between each ‘period’ became longer until they were no more. For most women this was a time of mourning. Mourning the loss of youth and of what made them the givers of life, but for her the time of mourning was long gone, and she was glad to not have to deal with that reminder of the death of her motherhood on a monthly basis.

She threw out the open box of tampons when a year had passed and the spotting didn’t re-occur but she had totally forgotten about the extra box she’d always kept on the ready.

She looked behind and aimed at the rubbish bin that sat patiently at the bathroom corner. The purple reminder of a person long gone made its way swiftly into the bin. Scully turned around and peered into the cabinet. A packet containing two toothbrushes stared right back at her from the back.

**THE END**


End file.
